


prelude to a parting

by partywitharichzombie



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Color Metaphors, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:47:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27212188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partywitharichzombie/pseuds/partywitharichzombie
Summary: The colors of leaving:An all-consuming scarlet, first. The news of Sebastian's imminent departure is fresh and raw, the vibrant vermillion of the oxygen-rich blood of just slaughtered cattle. The red you would see behind your eyes when your very world is collapsing before you, disgraced to its fundamental particles. The ashes of what once was dissolving in your mouth. Sharp, asphyxiating, puncturing your trachea and bursting your alveoli until drawing air would feel so torturous you'd beg to stop. The red of their cars, their team.For the time being. It won't betheirsfor that much longer.
Relationships: Charles Leclerc/Sebastian Vettel
Comments: 8
Kudos: 60





	prelude to a parting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ssilverarrowss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssilverarrowss/gifts).



> Title taken from the poem by Maya Angelou. Recommended reading.
> 
> For my dearest [ssilverarrowss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssilverarrowss/pseuds/ssilverarrowss). Continue to burn bright, sunshine.
> 
>  _Thank you_ so much to the ever brilliant [redpaint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redpaint/pseuds/redpaint)! Their feedback for this fic is truly invaluable, I wouldn't have been able to complete this without their input… Again, _thank you_ <3

_ The colors of leaving: _

**I.**

An all-consuming scarlet, first.

The news of his imminent departure is fresh and raw, the vibrant vermillion of the oxygen-rich blood of just slaughtered cattle. The red you would see behind your eyes when your very world is collapsing before you, disgraced to its fundamental particles. The ashes of what once was dissolving in your mouth. Sharp, asphyxiating, puncturing your trachea and bursting your alveoli until drawing air would feel so torturous you'd beg to stop.

Charles pokes and prods himself, testing to see if he can still feel hurt after having been drenched and lit aflame with the bright, searing red.

The red of their cars, their team.

For the time being. It won't be  _ theirs  _ for that much longer.

Tick.

Tock.

The call lessened the blow to a degree. He imagines learning about the exit from his boss. Or a team member. Worse still, from the press release that popped up on his phone's push notifications just now, imagines how the antiseptic corporate-approved language would carve pieces out of him like a surgical scalpel. At least Sebastian deems him worthy enough to warrant being told personally. Not necessarily self-evident, even if their paths entangle every so often, seeking solace in one another one too many times to be warranted a no-strings-attached label.

At least Charles thinks so. Has allowed himself to think so.

How is he supposed to interpret the achingly tender way Sebastian kisses the back of his hand, noting the couple of moles there, sure to brush soft lips over each knuckle each time they fall together? The way they press their foreheads together in the wake of their climax, mirrored eyes awe-filled, shared smiles bright and mad and wild.

Yet try as he might, Charles can't seem to bring it up with Sebastian when it finally is time for the season to get underway. It is simply known, understood. Accepted.

He goes along with the filming of the video challenges still, letting his competitive nature take over, willing it all to fade into background noise when the cameras are rolling. Yet the shroud of ether between them, invisible though it might be, remains thick and heavy.

Tick. Tock.

* * *

Hero worship. Bitter rivals.

And then a shift in the nature of their relationship. None too spectacular. Meaningful only in hindsight.

They'd fallen into a routine of attempting to inflict damage on one another, and Sochi wasn't supposed to be any different—Charles presenting himself on a silver platter so freely, so willingly, the only form of solace he knew to offer. After Spa and Monza and Marina Bay, letting anything between them stew in a pressure chamber ceased being an option. Why would they, when they could work through their anger and frustration  _ this _ way instead. Skin lay against skin, yet it carried little meaning, anyway.

Circuit of the Americas saw Sebastian at the short end of the stick yet again, the suspension of his car snapping under him like a twig crushed under a boot. One would expect a racecar costing millions to design and build to be much, much sturdier. And so Charles dutifully showed up at his door. A gesture almost taunting, almost pitying without Charles meaning for it to be.  _ Oh, it's you again taking the brunt of the blow. Here, a shoulder to cry on, a body to use, same difference. _

Instead,

"You don't have to," Sebastian pried himself off Charles, off the hold around his hip and shoulder, taking a measured step back. Charles felt thrown off his equilibrium. The rejection carried the force of a fist to the throat.

"Seb, I—"

"No, Charles, listen. You don't have to if you don't  _ really _ want to," he repeated, syllables accentuated, firm.  _ Do you want to? Or do you feel like you're obligated to simply because we've fallen into this vicious cycle? _

Charles paused, suddenly feeling like he was stripped to his very core.

"But I want to," he said after a moment of assessing himself, closing his distance to Sebastian again. "I want to, very much."

(As far as firsts go, their kiss wasn't earth-shattering, but to finally allow themselves to share  _ that  _ was not unlike the shifting of tectonic plates.)

* * *

But then, Interlagos.

The pieces of mangled carbon fiber painting the tarmac red like a trail of blood could've very well been the picture of destruction of whatever it was they managed to build. Carefully laid brick by brick, obliterated with a single hit. So fragile it was.

"I'm sorry," Charles prompted, voice no more than a suggestion of a whisper when he approached Sebastian before the post-race debrief. Not from pride, no. Fear, rather. Gutting, blinding metallic red, arresting his being like a rapidly descending fever. Fear that this could very well spell out the passing of their sentence.

Instead,

A hand on Charles's shoulder, a quiet smile on Sebastian's lips, a gaze achingly gentle and, "It comes with experience."

He didn't miss the way Sebastian squeezed his shoulder and caressed his upper arm, the way the rhythm of his breathing faltered.

"You'll learn. You'll become even better than you already are."

Charles felt his heart soar so high he thought he could touch the face of the sun.

(They woke up in his apartment in Maranello tangled in each other's presence, breathing each other's air. Charles tried to wrest himself away from the increasingly growing influence of the beast inside him, lest it decide to get too greedy for this—something. This something that was much too indistinguishable from affection. From—

He took Sebastian between his lips. Much less perilous a move to make. They could afford a few more moments together before they were to get an earful from their bosses, surely.)

* * *

(Almost lovers?)

* * *

But now it has returned: the cold metallic red of fear, the piercing, searing scarlet of hurt.

_ He's leaving. _

Tick tock.

* * *

**II.**

Into a deeper shade of red it mellows.

The color of passion in any other one of the infinite number of universes, of alluring roses and aged wine and fine velvets. To him: the color of wounds cauterized in a haste lest he bleeds too much too fast.

Charles runs his fingers through the fabric of the race suit tailored to match the special livery for the milestone race, the darker red of the early days of the Scuderia. It shouldn't feel different than any other ones he's pulled over his shoulders and zipped up to his neck before. Yet there is something there he can't quite put a name to, like trying to recall a day he never lived. Or a color he's never seen.

Familiar enough to find comfort in, foreign enough to be alien. Maybe such is the nature of change.

"You're still angry," Sebastian remarks as he withdraws from what should be one of their many more stolen kisses in between events and sessions, eyes searching.

Charles looks for the will to scream at him, curse his name, scorch the very earth beneath them. Doesn't quite find it. Just an ache beneath his eyelids, too dull to be too much of an annoyance, too present to simply ignore. "I am, Seb. And I have the right to be."

"You do, for sure."

The audacity of Sebastian's pulling Charles closer again, fingers curling at the base of his neck as Sebastian coaxes Charles's mouth open for his taking. The inevitability of Charles's melting,  _ dissolving _ into Sebastian's touch like scrap metals tossed into a furnace.

"We'll be alright, Charles," Sebastian says finally with a gentle as ever smile brushing at the corners of his lips, and Charles can almost bring himself to believe.

(He clutches it close to his chest, the way Sebastian pronounces his name. The way his local dialect softens the opening consonant, takes its edge off, makes it less severe. Not quite the French, English, nor the German way. Just  _ his. _ )

The doomsday clock is ticking down to zero somewhere and here they are, playacting. Pretending the imminent change is simply the natural course of things. Pretending they can somehow weather the storm and come out on the other side with their heads and hearts intact.

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

People come, people go. Such is life.

* * *

**III.**

He's tried, heavens, he  _ is trying. _ Putting on a pretense of normalcy, pretending he was alright. That they would be alright.

But drinking in Sebastian's scent, his presence, his solid weight against him, leaves Charles so drained and parched, it feels like he's being shoved to the precipice of delirium. When he wraps Sebastian's name around his lips as he peaks, it sounds too dangerously close to a desperate plea.  _ Stay. _

_ This doesn't have to mean anything  _ is supposed to be his mantra. He's not sure if he can bring himself to believe it anymore. Charles knows he is the one with more chips at stake, always has been. Risking his heart with possibly no returns in sight, holding on to a futile hope a moment too long. It's stupid.  _ He's _ stupid.

December. Tick tock. Tick tock.

No.  _ Now. _ So he has time to tend to his wounds. Maybe so it won't leave behind too many scars. Severing the umbilical cord he's tethered to is what he must do in order to survive.

Charles readies his knife.

* * *

With distance comes the alienation. And just as a foot on the gas, a slam on the brakes, nothing about them has ever unfolded slowly nor steadily. Zero to sixty in two point zero.

The amiability—familiarity, even—they once managed to scrape together has staled to awkward fumbling once more, trying to gauge each other's moods and nuances becomes even more of a tedious chore. Lighthearted jokes or thinly veiled threats? Charles can't quite tell the difference, too busy trying not to speak past each other, too busy tiptoeing between the cracks opening on the ground between them any time they grow too close.

Sochi rushes by with hardly any memory to hold on to, except for a persistent fog of vapid gray layered with a thick crust of rust.

In Nürburgring, he wakes up alone and nothing seems too amiss. Puts in a good shift on Saturday. Tries not to seek Sebastian out after the post-qualifying debrief, but maybe he needs not even try since he's been making himself scarce. Just as well.

If he were to choose, Charles would much rather face open hostility. Turn back the clocks a trip around the sun earlier. Let them clash and wreck each other, use and break each other. Let anger consume them whole. Let public relations scramble to damage control.

And yet even hostility wields power no more.

But it's better this way. Easier this way.

(Isn't it? It is  _ supposed _ to be.)

* * *

**IV.**

It evolves into acid poison green. Into regret bitter as bile, sharp as guillotine.

It is the witching hour in Algarve and Charles sits at the edge of wakefulness, his mind too restless to settle and succumb to sleep. Reminiscing. Regretting.

Spite, indifference, resentment, all to gain the last hundreths of time delta—it was easier that way, and more so after last year's Spa, Monza, Marina Bay. It was easier then, looking across the garage and wanting little more than to draw blood, reducing your teammate to little more than the first obstacle to overcome, the first man to beat. It was easier then, when their clashing of lips was only a way to ease the mounting tension between them, lest it all snap as fault lines in subduction zones. It was easier then, when falling to one's knees was but a depraved form of conversation between them. To communicate lust, loathing—little else but a way of coping.

It was easier then, when for all they knew they had all the time in the world to inflict wounds on one another. And that the fourth dimension was simply that—another continuum in our perception of the universe. Not a well that will eventually run dry, a resource they will run out of. Finite. Precious.

It was easier then, when they thought they could afford to hurt each other and not feel an inch of remorse. Or feel anything at all, for that matter. Certainly not camaraderie. Certainly not fondness. Certainly not affection.

Certainly not—

Charles rips the duvet off his body, jumps to his feet too fast his head blooms with sparks of stars. Wrenches the doorknob, crosses the treacherous couple of meters or so across the hallway. Any other time he would at least be aware of the fact that he is digging at the very bottom of the barrel of his dignity as his knuckles hammers against the mahogany, too urgent to be called a request to be let in.

A demand. A want. A need.

"I can't sleep," Charles says simply when the door does swing open.

_ I can't be without you. Please, I can't, _ his very being screams, every last edge of his reason singed with the sheer force of this not-quite-epiphany. For he has known for a while how deep Sebastian has permeated into the fabric of his cosmos, and Charles doesn't quite know how he is to survive their not being in each other's gravity.

Dying the little death together, remaking each other each time.

Tick tock, tick tock.

* * *

But then: perhaps purple, too.

Charles sinks his teeth deeper into Sebastian. His chest is heavy with greed and something too treacherously close to longing, stinging all the way to the corners of his eyes. Coloring Sebastian's skin with a shade not quite purple. But it might as well be, for every mark he lets Charles leave behind is more precious than the exquisite, coveted Tyrian of olden times, worth its weight in gold.

Maybe like so Sebastian can carry Charles when he finally leaves. An impression of their touches, an echo of his name shattering through Charles's throat. A distant memory of the moments they shared lost in the intoxication of each other's pleasure, sweet as ambrosia, addictive as opiates.

Tick tock, tick tock.

Is the flow of time universal and absolute or malleable and relative? Humanity may never find the definite answer for the remainder of history. All Charles knows is, should there be a way to preserve this very second in an atemporal pocket of space, untouched by the order of the universe, he would give his everything and beyond.

* * *

**V.**

Charles pulls at his steering wheel and frees himself from his seatbelts and the tethers of his HANS. The arid Abu Dhabi sky is no longer stained with the hues of twilight, the iridescence of the firework display and the rattling explosions in their stead. Red, green, blue. Strontium, barium, cuprum.

He needs not search, he finds him still. (He doesn't dare think they  _ find each other. _ )

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

Will it ever bloom back to blue?

An amiable color. Of clear crisp winter skies, not a single cloud in sight. Of the expanse of the Mediterranean, the sparkling jewel just beyond his balcony back home. Of peace, of trust.

Of Sebastian's eyes.

He already seems to have receded beyond the edge of the horizon before Charles even braves at trying to reach for him.

Is it wishful thinking, hanging on to the hope that whatever colors they will be donning by the time Barcelona rolls on, maybe, just maybe, they can keep holding on?

Charles reaches anyway.

* * *

(Sebastian meets him halfway.)


End file.
